The Samsung Galaxy Note10 Plus I received got an update to put it on final software the day of release–as usually happens when we are given a review device pre-release. But, there was one little quirk that I was told that update would fix, that it never did.

No matter what settings I’d selected in the app itself, Gmail would just not show me notifications for new mail. At all.

I’d be going about my day thinking I had no new emails (and pretending that was normal and not already a sign something was wrong, of course) and then I’d open Gmail on a whim and, what do you know, my entire inbox was full to the brim of new unread messages.

Well, upon giving up that an OTA update would come to the rescue any time soon I started to do some digging and found that there are actually a lot of people having a similar issue on previous Samsung Galaxy phones and how they went about fixing it.

Now, this method seems to have also worked on my Note10+ (and I imagine it would on any other Galaxy phone) so I figured I’d write down the steps in a bit more of a concise fashion for anyone else having the same Gmail issue.

Basically, what it comes down to is that OneUI-the additional software on top of Android that Samsung adds to their Galaxy phones-is stopping Gmail from checking for new messages when it’s not open.

Let’s be clear, it’s doing this in an effort to help with the battery life which I appreciate but, at least for me, I’d rather get my emails when they come in and sacrifice the tiny bit of battery life it might otherwise be sparing me.

How to Fix Gmail Notifications Not Showing on the Galaxy Note 10

To stop the phone from blocking this and letting you get your Gmail notifications instead, go to Settings.

Tap on the search icon and search for Optimize Battery Usage.

Then tap on Optimize Battery Usage.

In there, search for Gmail and then change the dropdown from Apps Not Optimized to All and turn off Gmail so it is no longer being optimized by the phone.

And that should solve it. Reboot the phone and wait for a Gmail notification to confirm if it works or not. Let me know in the comments below if it works or not and I’ll try and help.

Hi, thanks for this. I had the same issue with my Note 10 plus and have since returned the phone and got an Iphone as getting work emails on time when they come in is crucial. Im not liking the iphone so may go back to note 10 plus and follow your steps. I am just curious to know if this has been a permanent fix or has it been intermittent since you have turned off the optimize battery usage for Gmail. Would really like to know before I had back to the shop and get the Note 10 plus again. As annoying as Iphone is my work Gmails actually come through immediately. Thank you

Hi, no problem!
And yeah it works for my phone and I’m getting all of my notifications for Gmail now so I’d say it’s a permanent fix (if you update the phone, MAYBE you’ll have to just redo the steps, but I doubt that even).
Hope this was helpful!

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